Earlier today Daily Beast reporter Olivia Nuzzi decided to engage in some half-assed trolling of the web by defending the awful union-busting car service Uber and their decision to jack up prices in response to a armed stand off in Sydney Australia. Nuzzi asked me to explain why I thought her piece sounded like the idiotic ramblings of the annoying libertarian in a first-year con law class. So in response to that request I’ve provided my quick analysis below.

NB: I’m an American attorney so I’m not going to begin to pretend that I know or understand how Australia chooses to treat Uber or their actions regarding surge pricing. Therefore I’m going to provide you analysis from an American perception.

As a cafe in Sydney, Australia came under siege by a hostage-taking gunman on Monday, those nearby attempted to flee the area. Many of them turned to the popular ride-sharing app Uber, causing the demand for cars to skyrocket and in turn, the company’s so-called “surge pricing” to go into effect, with fares rising to four times the usual rate. The backlash was immediate and aggressive. It was also aggressively wrong.

Literally every state in this country disagrees with you about what constitutes an illegal and unconscionable form of price gouging, but good start.

The fact that Uber allowed surge pricing during a hostage crisis may lead you to believe that the company doesn’t care about you, and you would be correct. But Uber does not have a responsibility to care about you. Uber is not a government entity, and it is not beholden to the general carless public during an unwelcome drizzle of rain or even a time of great distress.

Uber is a stripped down, regulation skirting fad company that is designed to get its original investors filthy rich before the government (rightfully) legislates it out of existence. In order for the company to be profitable it uses city roadways, state highways, and federally funded interstates- all of which means that the company’s actions are thoroughly within the jurisdiction of any of those levels of government regulation. The fact that Uber isn’t a “public entity” is an irrelevant issue in the face of the law.

I’m old enough to remember a time before Uber––about four years ago––when people somehow managed to get from point A to point B. It’s hard to believe it judging by how some react when they can’t magically summon a car with a few taps of their fingers, but Uber has only existed since 2009, when it was founded as UberCab in San Francisco. Its mobile app launched the following year, and since then it has rapidly expanded from the Golden City to hundreds of cities in 53 countries around the globe. Surge pricing was not unveiled until 2012.

Uber exists because of a general lack of enforcement within public agencies in charge of preventing economic abuses by corporations. In truth that company is frequently flouting laws regarding proper livery registration (which directly serve the public interest in making sure only qualified drivers are on the road), ADA requirements (disability advocates worked for years to ensure access for ALL passengers in Taxis only to see Uber fuck that right up), and Unionization efforts (people fucking died to unionize Taxi’s- an industry made up of large portion of new immigrants- and now all that work is for not). So to be succinct: this company is one massive lawsuit from being litigated into the graveyard of bad ideas from the neo-gilded age.

The premise of the program is simple supply-and-demand: when demand for cars increases and supply decreases, Uber’s algorithm inflates the fee for rides accordingly, which the company claims encourages more drivers to work, which puts more cars on the road when people are requesting them most.

This sort of algorithm is explicitly illegal for registered taxis and similar car services because it is fucking abhorrent to take advantage of a disaster like this (again if this is cool with you why isn’t the Home Depot allowed to jack up the price of plywood when a hurricane is approaching?). All Uber is doing is using a (hopefully) temporary blind spot in the law to enrich it’s putrid investors.

Surge pricing happens during rush hour and when it rains or snows; it happens on holidays like Halloween and New Year’s Eve; and it has happened during states of emergency like Hurricane Sandy in 2012, after which the New York Attorney General stood Uber down and made them agree not to hike up fares during natural disasters––and he was as wrong as any of Uber’s customers who complain about their inflated fares.

He “made them” do that because their actions violated a long-standing law put in place to protect consumers from awful practices like this. He wasn’t doing it to be a dick.

Agitated Uber passengers often respond to surge pricing by posting screen shots of their astronomical fare estimates or receipts to social media as a means of shaming the company.

Why do you hate capitalism? Bitching about horrible shit that companies do is an essential tactic of consumers to force non-governmental change.

During a blizzard in 2013, Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, posted her $415 bill to Instagram with the caption, “UBER charge, during snowstorm (to drop one at Bar Mitzvah and one child at sleepover.) #OMG #neverforget #neveragain #real.” Recently a woman successfully crowdfunded to pay off a $360 trip taken on her 26th birthday.

Yes Jessica Seinfeld’s travails are entirely the same thing as people trying to escape a stand off with an armed and dangerous psychopath. Good hustle Olivia.

But Uber’s surges are not price gouging, as some have erroneously claimed.

Again how is this the case? All the elements to this illegal form of price manipulation (according to American law) were clearly demonstrated by their actions in Sydney.

Uber––which is actually not the only method of transportation on Earth, despite what it may seem like….

Those other forms are banned from price gouging by the way.

….warns passengers about the surge before it allows them to order a car, and if the surge is over two times the normal rate, the app forces users to type it in, just to make sure they really understand what they are getting themselves into.

Notice of price fixing is not a defense for the party engaged in it.

As the Sydney hostage crisis unfolded, Uber customers and observers alike took to Twitter to complain about the sky-high fares, calling the policy “Marxian” and “downright predatory.”

Uber responded to the PR nightmare by reversing the surge, refunding those affected, and doling out free rides. They shouldn’t have.

There is plenty to chastise Uber for––I am a frequent and enthusiastic critic of the company’s inadequate background check process––but price surging is not among its sins.

I’m going to assume you cited the background checks issue because you are disgusted by Uber’s intentional decision to disregard the safety of passengers so that they could avoid paying the extra costs associated with performing due diligence in hiring drivers. If that is the case…CONGRATS! You have successfully articulated a legitimate and well developed critique of why private corporation does not actually have unchecked discretion to do whatever the fuck they want in the pursuit of profits.

Now that we’ve established that assumption- why can’t you see how price gouging is a similar violation of the public interest? As Uber grows (by doing illegal shit) it will displace more regulated forms of transportation, thus forcing customers to abide by this disgusting form of gouging.

In his stand-up special Hilarious, Louis CK talks about this generation’s attitude of entitlement towards technology:

“I was on a plane once about a month ago, and they had high-speed wireless internet on the plane, and they had never done that before. They explained to us that we were like one of the first aircrafts. I opened up my laptop, and I’m online! I’m looking at YouTube and shit while we’re flying! And then it broke down, and the woman says, ‘I’m sorry, but we have to fix the internet, so it’s down for the rest of the flight.’ And the guy next to me goes, ‘this is fucking bullshit.’ Like dude, how does the world owe you something you didn’t know existed 30 seconds ago?”

Access to wifi only (arguably) amounts to an issue that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce, and therefore the powers of the government to make laws to require it are somewhat limited. The roadways that Uber uses on the other hand are subject to a broad swath regulation because Uber’s actions directly effect a “channel” of interstate commerce. Because of this direct effect, modern courts provide a significant level of “reasonably based” discretion to the state in their effort ensure equal and fair access for all. In other words the same legal reasoning that prevents segregation from existing are ALSO used to prevent price gouging.

How does the world owe you a private car, priced as you deem acceptable, that didn’t exist five years ago?

This is a non sequitur. People are asking that Uber be subject to the same laws that other car services must abide to in order to have the state’s permission (via a local licensing authority) to use publicly financed roadways.

If you don’t like Uber’s surge pricing, you are still welcome to travel by subway, cab, bus, camel, horse and carriage, or you can just fucking walk.

Please feel free to explain this to someone who doesn’t live in an area with reliable public transportation and would like to get home from their job/bar/friends house safely and legally.

If none of those options appeal to you, you might consider meandering over to a country with a different economic system.

Anarcho-Capitalism isn’t the economic system of this country (despite what the editors and investors of the Daily Beast might believe).

In 1992 I was a small child watching cartoons when Dan Rather suddenly interrupted to alert the country to the riots in LA. At the time I understandably had no concept about what was going on (I was living in Alabama), nor did I have an ability to comprehend what may have caused the uprising. However even then I felt that the response wasn’t entirely irrational. Today we look over the devastation “caused” by people who supposedly lack the moral clarity to “remain civil” in the face of a system that continues to give a full legal endorsement to killings motivated by white supremacy. Thus it is time to undeniably and defiantly assert that our political and judicial systems remain throughly infested with the virus of racism. However at the same time, recognizing the reality of this problem is an incomplete political awakening. If we truly do not want Michael Brown to have died in vain, it is time to forcefully push for a dramatic re-envisioning of what we desire our Police Departments to look and act like in the years ahead.

I used to work in the legislative department with the City of Long Beach, a “majority minority” locale with a political system that is structurally biased in favor of the whiter, higher-income suburbs. As a result of this arrangement (and an insanely powerful Police Union), public safety costs continue to fluctuate anywhere between 50 to 75 percent of the annual budget. This figure also does NOT include special allocations for extra (many times federally subsidized) appropriations for materials that the City Council more or less rubber stamps whenever they are put forth for a vote. Whenever this problem of the metastasizing Police budget comes up, labor groups largely defend the costs, as they are cognizant of the politically tenuous place that all public sector workers face in our Prop 13 strapped city. Meanwhile despite or perhaps because of record low crime rates (which I personally believe are achieved via the tried and true practice of “juking” the stats), the white suburbs of Long Beach are more than content with retaining our garrison state at the expense of any other form of community investment.

What I have described above is not in anyway a unique political reality. In fact across the US despite massive cuts to the public sector as a whole, the Police and other “first responders” retain a special ability to grow and solidify their place as the supreme concern for municipal constituencies. In fact in some places, including Ferguson, the Police are helping to assist cash-strapped local governments in collecting revenue through what are essentially regressive forms of taxation against people with no real means to properly defend themselves against this obvious form of discriminatory theft. Additionally with people of color losing their influence as a political block thanks to voter suppression, corruption amongst their local representatives, felony voting rights laws, and gerrymandered districts (etc), there is little hope for the ballot box to act as the ultimate solution to this problem.

So what do we do? Well being an eternal optimist I do see a few major sources for statutory reform to the police that can also function as very good points for political organizing. None of these proposals will end “steroidal over policing” overnight, but I think that effective and well financed campaigns in support of these goals could advance the overall agenda of disarmament, and a re-balancing of community interests over those of the Police Industrial Complex.

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1. Local Hire Provisions For Police Officers

Essentially a law like this would require that police officers who are employed by a particular locality must also be full-time residents of that same place. In a perfect world I would require that Police Officers patrol the same neighborhoods where they live, but as local hire requirements are only tenuously constitutional I’ll settle for a civil service reform that upends the current idiotic system where Police Officers enter a city each day as essentially an occupying force. Bridging the gap between the community and its sworn protectors requires instilling a congenial familiarity that the present tactics of “cruise around in your patrol car until something happens” inherently avoids.

2. Independent And Empowered Civilian Police Review Boards

An elected official whom I used to work with once gave this assessment of Long Beach’s beleaguered citizen review board; “it is toothless and useless”. In my city the Police Department and City Manager cynically use the CPCC process, which according to the City Charter itself has no real punitive power over the cases it examines, to essentially whitewash any investigation into Police misconduct. Every local police authority must have a separate, independently appointed and overseen entity, with actual demonstrative and statutorily defined ways of punishing officers who are found to have abused their power or acted negligently in the field. If Michael Brown’s death has shown us anything it is that the current judicial system makes it next to impossible to even obtain an indictment for an officer because of the way in which the district attorney office and police department rely on each other to work.

3. Statutory Caps On Police Armaments

I saw a tweet (but sadly didn’t screenshot it) from Long Beach Councilman Roberto Uranga in August that expressed some concern over “police militarization”. Frankly I don’t know why every politician in the country, regardless of their ethnic or political background, isn’t jumping on this growing resentment over the Police and their toys. If you are a public cost-cutting Republican or a Progressive Socialist mad at decreased resources to the poor this is an easy issue to address. Black, brown, and white folks all have their own reasons for getting uncomfortable when we start seeing tanks rolling around in our neighborhoods. That said there is a powerful economic lobby behind this arms race, and the insidious way in which these expenses creep into local budgets rely on continued fear and/or complacency amongst average voters.

So if we are to reverse this trend we need to re-imagine what purpose our Police Departments serve. Are the Police essentially the local military wing of the state, serving the interests of whomever is in charge at the time with some varying degree of restraints depending on the circumstances? That description of our current reality might make people feel uncomfortable to acknowledge, but to blindly assert that people dressed for fighting ISIS exist to “protect and serve” is patently absurd.

Instead let’s take a cue from Firefighters, entities with a shared purpose that has radically changed from their original mission (fighting fires), to a more general raison d’être of responding to medical emergencies. Perhaps our we can require our Police to think less of their job revolving around their weapon, and focus more on their secondary role of being the first responders to incidents of domestic violence, the overuse of drugs and alcohol, and quality of life crimes. Police who see their jobs as “social workers with a badge” are far less likely to kill unarmed civilians, and we can engender this sort of conceptualization for their job ONLY IF their is a political will to do so.

4. Citizen Participation In City Attorney Races

The City of Long Beach has paid millions of dollars to families whom our Police Department improperly killed in the line of duty. We could have paid far less money, but our City Attorney (possibly at the behest of the LBPOA who endorsed him for re-election) decided to litigate instead of settling and admitting liability. And despite a record amount of money spent on this race in 2014, not that many people really seemed to care about who filled this incredibly important position. The result of this complacency should serve as a reminder that community activists, especially those who seek to influence public policy at the local level, of the need to bring a broad awareness of ALL positions of power to the voters in every cycle.

5. Body Cameras

This is the short-term, but potentially very powerful policy solution to this problem of officer-involved violence. Body cameras can be expensive and there is a legitimate privacy concern about creating yet another facet of our surveillance state, but like the effort to tape all police interrogations I can’t see a particularly powerful argument against using technology to force a new degree of openness and transparency between the police and the people they serve. Additionally the Police themselves are protected by these cameras when their actions are being unfairly misconstrued by an understandably upset criminal, and given the free-wheeling way in which Police Departments accept public money for new toys it could be relatively easy to make receiving more funds for men and materials conditional on adopting these devices at large.

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These five proposals are just a sample of the major reforms that are necessary at the local level to prevent another tragic altercation like those between the Police and Mike Brown or Douglas Zerby. None of these proposals will immediately undo the “occupation” mindset of our Police, or stem the racially based fear that allows the political system to uphold this sort of violence against people of color. However with effective, well financed campaigns that address specific fixes like these, we can start the long overdue process of deescalating this war on the poor that has claimed way too many people in the last few years.

On the other hand If we are unwilling to pursue this new course of action, the alternative is to become comfortable with “Fergesons” occurring with an increased regularity and tenacity.

But despite his efforts to directly address these problems to the best of his ability, he largely failed. Most of this blame can be directly set on the drooping shoulders of our unhinged and deranged Supreme Court, but (and this is not to imply that I was conscious of this argument BEFORE I made that ill-advised tweet) some of the failure can indeed be linked to Holder’s well-documented recalcitrance to holding our economic and political elites accountable for their transgressions. And that failure of consistency is a reflection of modern race relations in this country.

Like Scott Lemieux said in this piece, Holder’s policy decisions over at the DOJ largely reflected the values of his boss. Thus (along with Holder’s past as a corporate attorney) I think that it’s fair to say that the obvious blind spot that the Obama administration has had concerning economic justice and class-based discrimination permeated into how Holder designed his attacks against the racist power structures within this country. Non-controversial issues like voting rights, and evolving political positions on police brutality and the drug war presented Holder with avenues in which the DOJ could at least attempt to create good solid precedent for lasting positive change. However by failing to perhaps take on the more difficult actors behind our 2-tired justice system, Holder’s (and I honestly do not think this was intentional on his part) greatest legacy remains vulnerable to attacks from future administrations. In other words, time remains a flat circle.

If anything Holder, like Obama, personifies the problem that the 21st Century “Talented Tenth” have had once they reach the halls of what were (very recently) lily-white halls of political power. The death of class consciousness within certain segments of the black elite after the 1970’s has had a demonstrable and sad effect on the ideologies for these individuals (regardless of their political party). The expectation that every major liberal must have a “Sister Souljah” moment (where the candidate takes a steaming shit on poor/black people under the guise of addressing negative “cultural” traits , presumably in order to appease nervous white people), as well as the genuine surprise that white progressives like myself have that Barack Obama can’t say things in public like Alan Greyson for his own personal safety is itself the legacy of systemic racism and violence in this country. The fact that Eric Holder has to frame an embarrassing and illegal stop by police on his body in terms of “and I was a Federal Prosecutor at the time” shows how far we still need to go as a society.

So to sum up Eric Holder’s legacy, it is perhaps obvious at this point that in order for a person to be in a position of power AND simultaneously be an ideologically consistent progressive, he or she must be white.

The most recent edition of Radiolab focuses on the nouveau fascination with nihilism, or at least the extreme form of pessimism exhibited by people across traditional political lines as we enter the waining years of the Obama era in this county. From the legal standpoint we can also see a developing genre in popular books finally recognizing the inherent meaningless of our criminal justice system. Works like Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”, Greenwald’s “With Liberty and Justice for Some”, and Taibbi’s “The Divide” all highlight the now inherent (and incredibly harsh) biases within our penal system at large.

The continuing theme behind all of these works is the problem of consistency, and the recognition that a certain segment of the government is behaving without any semblance of accountability. What makes the lack of a policy-based response regarding police overreach is how broadly appealing this cause for concern is (and perhaps how undeniable it is when faced with the evidence) . This is a truly “bipartisan” matter, with progressives and liberals voicing their dismay over the discriminatory impact of police overreach, and conservatives identifying with the inherent unease with “big government” (just look at this remarkable post from CNN’s disgrace Erick Erickson).

One might give [St. Louis County prosecutor] McCulloch the benefit of the doubt, if not for his background. His father was a police officer killed in a shootout with a black suspect, and several of his family members are, or were, police officers. His 23-year record on the job reveals scant interest in prosecuting such cases. During his tenure, there have been at least a dozen fatal shootings by police in his jurisdiction (the roughly 90 municipalities in the county other than St. Louis itself), and probably many more than that, but McCulloch’s office has not prosecuted a single police shooting in all those years. At least four times he presented evidence to a grand jury but — wouldn’t you know it? — didn’t get an indictment.

Locally here in Long Beach, a community far more diverse that St. Louis County, but with it’s own rather horrible recent history of officer involved shootings, we’ve recently elected a new progressive Mayor and passed a new budget. However at this time it seems highly unlikely that either actual structural changes to the police force, or the mechanisms necessary to ensure true accountability will be implemented anytime soon. As Retired LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing wrote in the LA Register, our City Charter and budget have produced massive procedural blindspots that reduce the public’s necessary ability to properly regulate our police force:

The city of Long Beach is of such a size and complexity that supervision of the police department and authority over the police disciplinary process by the city manager are outdated, ineffective and subject to the many conflicts that arise with respect to the city manager’s relationship with the city attorney, police union, liability concerns, campaign contributions and the like.

What the [Mayor’s] Transition Team should have recommended in addition to status quo governance measures is fundamental reform to the charter that will bring the city and its Police Department out of the Dark Ages. At the very least, the Transition Team should have recommended establishment of a blue-ribbon committee to study and recommend changes to the city charter that will accomplish – at minimum – the following reforms:

• The authority, powers and duties of the police department should be outlined in the city charter and the chief of police given disciplinary authority over all members of the department subject to civil service or court appeal.

• The chief of police should be made subordinate to a board of five citizen police commissioners, selected from residents, who serve as the policy head of the Police Department.

• The mayor, subject to City Council ratification, should appoint the board of police commissioners.

• The board of police commissioners should have hire-and-fire authority for an executive director and an inspector general, each provided with the necessary authorities and personnel to investigate, audit and make publicly transparent recommendations to the board related to all police functions, with special emphasis on use-of-force and shooting policy.

• The chief of police should be hired from a list of three candidates selected by the police commission and forwarded to the mayor. The mayor must select from the list of three, subject to City Council confirmation.

• The chief of police should be hired under contract for a five-year period, subject to renewal by the police commission for one additional five-year period and no longer.

• The board of police commissioners should have the authority to terminate the chief of police for cause, subject to mayoral and City Council approval.

• The City Council should have the power to remove the chief of police for cause by a two-thirds vote.

None of these reforms can in anyway be thought of a “pie-in-the-sky” hippy bullshit. Neither are they anti-union, “fuck the public sector workforce into the 1880’s” policy recommendations. As the grandson of a Boston Police officer (one that benefited directly from reforms brought on by this long forgotten Police strike), and a citizen of this wonderful city, I see no legitimate reason why these ideas are not being discussed on the 14th Floor. This is a basic discussion of instilling accountability for all- a concept that no one can deny in terms of its legitimacy and necessity.

I apologize for employing the cliched term “problematic” in describing this half-assed analysis of one of the most dangerous (and specious) legal arguments of our time. However this sort of remark is emblematic of the chronic issue within corporate journalism of political reporters attempting/failing to comment on legal issues. The Plaintiff’s argument in Hobby Lobby case is a ramshackle assortment of transparently idiotic right-wing policies, combined into a Frankenstein of a case that should never have been given cert. However BECAUSE of the nature of bad political journalism, this of dumbass idea made the jump from 1L con-law hypothetical to the point where it now could essentially nuke 60 years of well established public accommodations law. (The Clerks and Justices on SCOTUS pay attention to the same terrible news shows everyone else does).

Any of us who believe in a well-regulated workplace, sexual privacy, healthcare, and yes ACTUAL religious freedom (and not the legal recognition of Christian Sharia Law) should be horrified that this case wasn’t laughed out of court at the outset. The proponents of this mutant strand of fundamentalist christianity and anarcho-capitalism will never be satisfied with their unjustified inflated power in this country. Folks like Coppins who insist that we listen to these fever dreams and give them credence as a legitimate ideology are complicit in the creeping force of totalitarianism that the right wing is consciously attempting to instill.

Almost ten years ago I received a thick blue envelope from Brandeis University signifying that my underachieving high school ass had by some miracle (cough cough LEGACY) been admitted to the Class of 2008. Brandeis was my first choice, and I would be the third member of my family to go to the school. To say that I throughly enjoy my four years there would be an understatement. Between meeting my best friends, having my entire social consciousness overhauled, and trolling Alan Dershowitz, it is fair to say that I received my money’s worth.

My pride for the school persisted beyond Waltham as well. During my term abroad in Dakar, Senegal, people stopped me when I wore my Brandeis t-shirt to tell me about the great programs that they had for international students. After I graduated four more members of my family enrolled in the school, including two current juniors. My wedding in 2010 was almost entirely made up of Brandeis grads (which made for an awkward scene at communion in the Episcopal church).

But while I love my alma mater, there was something amiss in the institution, or more precisely someone. Then President Jehuda Reinharz was a persistently awful manager and human being during my tenure at Brandeis, so much so that I vowed never to give any money to the school until he was fired. His sins included (to name a few)

Being the worst customer in all of Brandeis dining services. His favorite thing to do was order all the food on the menu on his corporate card, eat nothing, and then bring it all home. AND HE NEVER FUCKING TIPPED.

When Brandeis University president Jehuda Reinharz stepped down three years ago, he moved back into his old faculty office.

But unlike most history professors, Reinharz does not teach any classes, supervise graduate students, or attend departmental meetings. He did not bother posing for the department photo. The chairwoman for Near Eastern and Judaic Studies said she did not even know whether he was officially a member of her department.

Yet Reinharz remains one of the highest paid people on campus.

He received more than $600,000 in salary and benefits in 2011, second only to the new Brandeis president, according to the school’s most recent public tax returns. And that’s on top of the $800,000 Reinharz earned in his new job as president of the Mandel Foundation, a longtime Brandeis benefactor.

“There is puzzlement from faculty about why he gets paid at all” by Brandeis, said Gordon Fellman, a sociology professor at Brandeis. “His term as president ended.”

But if anything about the lives of the rich, powerful, and stupid have taught us in the new millennium, it is that the 1% can only fail upwards:

Some Brandeis officials defend the deal with Reinharz, saying it was crucial to retain his expertise to help with the transition to a new president who had not previously worked at Brandeis. They also wanted his help to maintain relations with major donors.

“He knows how to raise money,” said Jack Connors, who was vice chairman of the board when it signed an agreement to keep paying Reinharz after he stepped down….

“I am compensated according to my accomplishments,” said Reinharz in an interview at his Brandeis office. “It’s the way America usually works.”

Goddamn right it is Jeuhda, man of the people. So what is it that you do exactly?

“I don’t punch a clock,” said Reinharz, adding that his main job is to help the 92-year-old chairman, Morton Mandel. “I work when my work is needed.”

Reinharz was equally noncommittal about how much time he devotes to Brandeis, where he mainly works as an adviser to president Frederick Lawrence and other staffers. “I’ve never worked at Brandeis by the hour,” he said. Lawrence “asks for advice. I give it. And I don’t look at my watch.”

However, Reinharz confirmed that he spent the entire first year of Lawrence’s presidency on sabbatical, when presumably his advice would have been needed the most.

Must be nice. How much are you making exactly through this “unprecedented” deal where you are “half time professor” and head of this Mandel Center thing where to talk with an old ass man all day?

He received more than $600,000 in salary and benefits in 2011, second only to the new Brandeis president, according to the school’s most recent public tax returns. And that’s on top of the $800,000 Reinharz earned in his new job as president of the Mandel Foundation, a longtime Brandeis benefactor….

The foundation, which pays for half of Reinharz’s office expenses, did not make it easy for the public to discover Reinharz’s pay, listing him as an unpaid board member on forms filed with the IRS, while staff said his compensation was confidential.But reports filed by three related Mandel family foundations suggest he earned a total of $800,000 in consulting fees in 2011, more than double what chief executives of similar-sized grantmaking organizations normally earn.

HOLY FUCK MAN. Well I guess living in Taxachusettes is pretty expensive all with the Romneycare and all. Your mortgage alone must be unbelievable right Jehuda?

The university also let him remain in the Brandeis president’s spacious home in Newton for six months after he stepped down.

And Reinharz could have earned even more if Brandeis had not clarified the agreement in 2012 to limit him to half time as president emeritus after 2011. Otherwise, Reinharz could have reported working full time in the position and collected $575,000 a year.

Well going to law school to balance my unpaid internships with $15 per hour jobs was obviously a big mistake on my part. I guess I should have followed the path of Reinharz and just followed my passion of grifting money from suckers and writing books about donkeys:

The one area where Reinharz was specific about how he spends his time was his own research, including a book he is co-writing on the history of the donkey in literature, arguing that the animal is often used as a substitute for people.

“There are smart donkeys, stupid donkeys, evil donkeys, etc., and no one has ever contemplated this on a large scale,” said Reinharz, who commissioned an artist to make a wood carving of a donkey that stands proudly on his desk. “It’s probably the most ambitious topic I have ever contemplated.”

That last sentence is entirely accurate.

In all seriousness this is downright disgusting. The official explanation that the school has issued since the release of this article is incomplete at best, if not deliberately obtuse. To say that Reinharz’s compensation package was justified due to the insanity of other institutions in granting these golden parachutes makes no sense. A tenured faculty member does have some leverage when they are asked to leave by the board- in that they can’t be entirely forced out of the institution. However nothing prevents the board from fulfilling their main fiduciary duty of care to the school when negotiating the salary and role of an ex-adminstrator who is returning to the faculty. To literally write a a blank check to the man who torpedoed the endowment of the school so he can satisfy his late in life donkey fetish demonstrates an amazing disregard for the faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the university I love.

The alumni I know are beyond pissed off right now. If Jehuda was a lawyer who was provided this amount of money with only “services rendered” on the invoice he would be disbarred, and the board that hired him would be dismissed. Unless a full and detailed accounting of Reinharz’s duties, schedule, and expenses is released, this controversy should serve as sign to all future applicants to Brandeis that the institution is not to be trusted with their tuition.